Chapter 3: The Beast Who Spoke in Lana
The ruins had grown quieter.
Still.
Too still.
Stelae wandered further from the crumbling school, deeper into what used to be the suburban edge of town. Houses had long since collapsed into twisted steel and moss-covered bone. Roads were buried under ivy and dirt, devoured by time.
Now, the forest reigned.
Thick, monstrous trees—fatter than telephone poles—jutted from the cracked earth. Their bark shimmered with silver veins, pulsing faintly under the strange, ever-purple sky. The leaves above flickered like shards of glass, catching the light of a dead sun.
No birds. No insects. Just the whisper of wind through glassy branches… and something else.
It was peaceful.
Unnaturally so.
Can't believe this is a hell, he thought, stepping over a toppled streetlamp strangled by vines. A beautiful, quiet, haunted hell.
Crunch.
His heart jolted.
That sound—
It wasn't his.
From the dense underbrush ahead, a shadow emerged. Towering. Hulking. Covered in patchy, bronze-tinged scales that gleamed faintly with each step. Its shoulders were wide, arms thick as tree trunks. Its back legs were arched—like a kangaroo's—built for springing.
A Sloi.
A prehistoric mountain of muscle and bone.
I need to get out of here, I don't want to be carved up by a reptilian gym rat.
The Sloi's eyes glowed pale green, like dying embers. Its long claws idly raked a tree's trunk, peeling off silver bark in curls. It wasn't aggressive.
Not yet.
But its presence felt… ancient. Heavy. Like the pressure before a thunderstorm.
And then—it spoke.
"⨉'rha luno Sliin do Lanaa…"
Its voice was deep. Guttural. Like tectonic plates grinding beneath the earth. The language was completely foreign—syllables slipping past his comprehension like oil on glass.
Tha la so do…?
Stelae blinked, frozen.
Since when do monsters give monologues?
No wonder I didn't know—I've been a under a tree for two million years.
I'm the dinosaurs to the dinosaurs.
I'm practically a historic site.
He took a cautious step back.
The Sloi tilted its head.
"Zhel… run'sla?"
The tone shifted.
Its claws dug into the ground.
Its muscles coiled.
It didn't sound curious anymore.
It sounded like a threat.
Run'sla probably means "run slap."
And that's what it's about to do—slap me into the afterlife.
It roared.
And leapt.
"—!"
The world shook.
The Sloi launched like a cannonball, smashing down where Stelae had just stood. The ground cratered under its landing, sending cracks through the earth like spiderwebs.
Dirt rained down like ash.
Guess I'm running now.
Stelae turned and sprinted.
Behind him, the Sloi bounced—hop, hop, hop—like a gigantic, murder-hungry rabbit. Each leap was an earthquake. Trees trembled. Broken buildings collapsed in its wake.
He darted behind a mossy old truck.
It didn't matter.
The Sloi smashed it aside like it was made of straw.
Think, Stelae—there's always a way. There has to be.
He bolted through narrow alleys of tangled roots and shattered stone. Leapt over a broken fence. Slid down a muddy slope.
But he wasn't fast enough.
The Sloi's next jump sent a shockwave through the earth. He stumbled—his foot catching on a root.
A moment of imbalance—
WHAM.
"AGHH—!"
Its foot grazed him mid-jump.
It felt like being hit by a wrecking ball.
Pain exploded across his shoulder as he was thrown into a bramble. His body hit the ground hard. He gasped, writhing.
His arm wouldn't move. His shoulder was definitely shattered—maybe more. Blood soaked through his torn shirt. He tasted copper.
The Sloi landed again. Closer. Circling like a predator. Snorting. Waiting.
He had seconds.
His vision blurred. His breathing ragged.
The dirt, his instincts screamed. It's soft here. Fresh. Muddy.
Stelae rolled toward a dip in the terrain. A moment later—
The Sloi lunged.
He dove the opposite way.
The beast slammed into the mud, its clawed feet sinking. Off balance. Just long enough for Stelae to vanish into the dense, thorny underbrush.
He didn't move.
Couldn't.
He just lay there—curled in pain, gasping into the earth.
The Sloi sniffed. Growled. Stomped in a circle.
Then, with a final frustrated roar—
It bounded away.
Gone.
Silence.
His body shook with every breath. His arm dangled limp. Blood pooled in the dirt beneath him.
This is it, he thought. I'm going to die here. In the mud. Alone.
But then—something changed.
He heard a faint crackling, like twigs snapping underwater.
His shoulder began to tingle.
Bones twitched.
Muscles tugged.
The pain sharpened—then dulled.
His skin began sealing itself shut.
"What…?"
He pushed himself up slowly, trembling, watching his body heal.
Not instantly. Not magically.
But minute by minute, the torn tissue mended. The bleeding stopped. The agony faded into a deep, lingering ache.
After thirty minutes…
His shoulder was intact.
His arm moved again.
The blood had stopped flowing.
He stared at his hands in disbelief.
Figures I get nearly flattened by a prehistoric death-jumper just to discover I'm not immortal.
"I can still die," he whispered. "That… wasn't immortality."
But healing from that? A crushed shoulder? Internal bleeding?
No ordinary human could survive that.
No ordinary human.
He looked toward the woods where the Sloi had vanished. Its roars were still echoing faintly in the hills beyond.
"I don't understand this world," he murmured. "I don't even understand me."
His fingers twitched in the mud.
He glanced up—at the violet sky, at the broken moon hanging over the glowing forest.
"But before I find the Divine Tree…
…I need to understand them."
The Sloi.
The language it spoke.
The world they ruled.
Lana.
Was that the name of its tongue?
Or a place? A people?
Too many questions.
And answers weren't going to come easy.
But one truth burned clear now:
He could be hurt.
He could bleed.
But he was not normal.
And this world—this world of monsters and silence—wasn't going to kill him so easily.
Not before he found the truth.